Current Projects

The Artstar project is an autonomous creative AI. It proposes a technically grounded yet philosophically ambitious framework for building a self-evolving, multimodal creative agent—one capable of generating original visual, sculptural, and sonic outputs without reliance on external data sources.

At its core, the Artstar system operates as a closed generative loop composed of several integrated subsystems, each responsible for a specific modality (2D image, 3D form, and Music), with coordination orchestrated through a memory-augmented agentic logic layer. Rather than consuming or remixing datasets scraped from the internet, the agent begins from pure procedural randomness—initial seed prompts generated by a foundational LLM (e.g., GPT5) based on abstract conceptual primitives—and evolves through recursive self-reflection. The outputs of each generative cycle are re-ingested, described, and mutated, forming the basis for future iterations in a self-contained creative ecosystem. As far as the outputs are concerned there will be an initial period of prototyping and refining the output pipeline. There will eventually be a public facing version of Artstar as well. This could provide the resources for further development and could be structured in a variety of ways.

From a research perspective, the Artstar system aligns with open questions in AGI, especially around agent autonomy, self-reflective computation, and meta-cognitive planning. From an artistic standpoint, it represents a rupture from derivative machine art toward truly original, machine-native aesthetics. It is both a tool and an organism—designed to evolve, surprise, and challenge our assumptions about what it means for a machine to make art not from us, but from within itself.

The current Artstar project team is Steve Lomprey (Multimedia Artist and Founder) , Carl Bass (Former Head of Autodesk) , James Smith (Computer Scientist at UC Berkeley) , and advisory Josh Bloom (Professor of Astronomy at UC Berkeley, and AI startup founder).

ARTSTAR AI

The Real Fictions TV series is an attainable moonshot project. Moonshot in the sense that nothing like this has been attempted for a television series audience. The vantage point of Real Fictions is partly through the lens of science fiction. We turn our gaze towards ourselves and our extraordinary circumstance as if through the eyes of an interested alien.

In many ways, the further we are off the surface of the planet, the clearer we can see where we are. It is a way to see ourselves and the cultures, countries, territories, systems, boundaries, societies, tribes, and identities as the self created realities that they are. They are real and fictional simultaneously, they are Real Fictions. This is not to trivialize all of the very real suffering and conflict in the world but to offer a shift in perspective. Real Fictions is an opportunity to examine the contingent and consensus nature underneath these realities we create.

To produce conventional entertainment is perfectly fine and valid, but this series offers new contexts for thinking, and an inspiring new way to see ourselves. Real Fictions will encourage a dialog about our shared humanity, it’s an opportunity to bring that vision and excitement to a mass audience.

REAL FICTIONS TV SERIES